I remember watching the moon landing, then a few years later 2001 Space Odessy (remember that space station) and thinking that when I was older a holiday in space and even on the moon would be the norm.

And what have we got, a few tin cans super-glued together with some resident scientists and a defunct space shuttle program.

Oh well, maybe in a few generations.

If the money had been spent on something useful, say reducing poverty or increasing the number of hospital beds I'd say fair enough, that's a good swap. But somehow I doubt that's the case.

I think the space accomplishments have contiuned to be pretty impressive, at least to me anyway. The Hubble telescope, all the robot missions to all the planets, lots of knowleged gained, great pictures. Sending people into space is still too expensive, there waits a new energy breakthrough if common people are going to have low cost access. It will happen, it has too, life will not survive on earth when the sun goes boom. We need to be somewhere else when that happens.

True, I guess they don't quite grab the imagination like a person walking on another planet.

Yes, walking on Mars would be a great accomplishment, but mostly for pride and ego. So much more information and data can be obtained by the robots, compared to short visits by us meat bags returning with a few rocks.

If the money had been spent on something useful, say reducing poverty or increasing the number of hospital beds

Not to turn the thread into political rants, but the NASA budget peaked at about 4.5% of the total US budget (in '65. More recently it's less than 1%), compared to (recently) about 20% each for Medicare/etc (hospital beds, etc) and Social security (helps prevent old folks from being poor) and 14% "safety net" programs (reducing poverty.)

I won't claim that any of that money is spent particularly efficiently, but quadrupling the space budget by reducing social programs, or reducing the space program to zero and putting all the money in social programs, would be unlikely to make a noticeable difference.

How about boost both space program and social welfare with reducing guns and troops. It's unlikely the 3rd world war will start within a few decades. Oil running out may spark conflicts but with more money on renewable energy, we can prevent that. If each country doesn't have to watch their own backs so much, they can spend time and money on something more meaningful.

Anyways, if we make it to Mars, it's like the good old American dream come true. Martians welcoming us with gold and endless resources. Everyone sends postcards with photos of stockpiles of energon cubes and gold bars.

Sounds good to me. Unless you count "troops" as another method of helping the poor.

Unfortunately, reducing the "Defense" budget is unlikely to end up putting money into other science/tech areas. Those social programs are like a black hole for money, inefficiently spending everything thrown their way in bureaucratic rat holes that don't solve the original problems, and don't even end up creating any neat toys.